Can’t get my child to school

[Palmtreesinthewinds]

What would you do? really need help/advice 🙏

We live in another country where they start formal schooling at age 6.
My dc was in pre school part time from age 4-6 (she turned 6 end of July)
In May she got ill and stayed off Pre school, she is only really recovering now (still not 100% but we’re hopefully getting there)
She tried Year 1 for two half days in September and couldn’t cope, we just tried back this week and she found the work too hard and was very anxious and wants to stay with me.
I just cannot get her to school, she gets very very upset about it and once in, cries a lot and they call me to come and pick her up.

I don’t know what to do at all.
Legally I have to have her in school, we’ve had the Drs reports and absence letters up until now, but their recommendation is to try to get her back to school.

What would you do?

The poor little thing. Anyone would feel unsettled after that experience.

I've not read the thread but as a clinical psychologist I'm wondering whether it's PANDAS that she's had? If so, I'd recommend finding a clinical psychologist to support, preferably one with experience of neuropsychiatric disorders in children.

But there's not actually a problem, other than the child preferring to stay at home.

Take the kids to school and go home

I’m sorry to read this. As a Speech and language therapist who has spent a career outside Uk - having to consider different school systems at times, this was my thought. Mainly the first paragraph.

I would also be wanting school to give their opinion as to whether she can in fact cope.

Mum you really do have to make a plan and tell your daughter using visual timetables and Social stories if you can, exactly what to expect. You might change your plan later, but don’t give her the option right now.

We’d both have to move over and get jobs there. We can’t work remotely with our work

Sorry you are going through this OP. The crux of the matter is that you are in Portugal with a child who isn’t fluent in the language. Added to which she has been extremely poorly. Your daughter needs to be to be in an English speaking school. Preferably as a PP pointed out one back in this country. Very easy for me to say I know but I would move heaven and earth if it was my child.
Even given the dire state of SEND provision in this country it has to be preferable to your current situation? I am sure most experienced Primary school teachers here could come up with a workable plan for your child’s reintegration back into school.
I don’t have any experience of SEND provision in Portugal but from what you have written it appears to not exist. The poor child stuck at a desk, still recovering from illness and not understanding what’s going on. Many adults would be sitting crying in that scenario.

Yes it’s Pans (not pandas as no strep found)
We had a child psychiatrist at first, but then she has said in her opinion she should go back to school, she’s not even better yet

It sounds really tough and hard for any of you to see an easy way out. From the way you have described her behaviour and the school set up, it does sound like finding out if she can drop back a year would be the best. Especially as a young child for her year.

Then i would focus on getting her comfortable leaving you and being in that pre-school environment for the next few months where she isn't expected to know anything or feel like she's missed out to add more stress. An extra year now is not going to penalise her later academicallly or socially. As a second language student, it also gives you all time to pile in some fun language immersion ready for next year.

Homeschooling sounds like more than just an issue of socialising... she has missed out on lots already so would need to double up on workload when she's still recovering, it is a school system you are less familiar with and so will be harder to plug in the learning she needs let alone help her catch up when she's still tired and recovering.

Hopefully going back to preschool means she can build up her post-recovery resiliience both physically and mentally. It gives her time to make friends or consolidate friendships in her new age group and make the transition to school next year so much easier because all that extra stress is removed.

Just a word of caution about coming back to the UK... if she is 6 years old already then she would be going back in to year 2 from september and that will be a huge jump for someone who hasn't been in the school system up until then.

On reading more of OP's posts - I would emphasise that total avoidance is absolutely the way to increase anxiety. However, recovery from brain injury is tiring (my DS has epilepsy and even recovery from one serious fit is tiring) and she hasn't been able to catch up with work. I would therefore suggest she must keep going, but not for the whole day initially, and the school needs to be on board with the idea that she can't catch up academically at the moment.

The aim is to achieve some success at every step so succeeding in going to school for the time you have planned her to go to school will make her feel like she has succeeded, not failed.

As she's young for the year and has also been ill I would look into the possibility of her going back to pre school to build her confidence and going through school a year behind. She would only be the oldest by a couple of months. It would also improve her skills in her second language.
I think in the circumstances it isn't fair just to stop picking her up and let her sink or swim.
If going back to pre school isn't possible I'm not sure what the solution is. Perhaps home schooling with a lot of extra activities to build confidence and language. Spending sometime with a Portuguese childminder?
It really isn't the case that there's no problem other than the child wanting to stay at home.

Sorry you got some (imo) harsh replies at the start OP. Some real lack of empathy in those, esp the poster saying if she cried at work every day so she could go home she would (or words to that effect). Last time I checked, adults have a fully developed brain and more developed emotional literacy and coping strategies to use. Hate it when adults compare themselves to young children.

I've only skim-read, but have read all your replies. You are in a difficult situation, in a foreign country, with a 6yr old who has been seriously ill for a number of months. Please please just be gentle with yourself and your daughter. Trust your instincts.

My youngest suffered with separation anxiety when he started school and I got so fed up with well-meaning advice such as "be bright and breezy at drop off, smile and be confident and cheerily wave him off. Don't return until pick up". What a load of rubbish. Eventually found the SENCO super helpful, and she let me stay with DS in the classroom for 10-15 minutes to help him regulate (he needed me to co-regulate; small humans need calm attachment figures to help them do this). After 10-15 minutes he would give me a sign that he was ready for me to leave him. So he had some control. He was also allowed a teddy/transition object.

When I voice my worries to the SENCO that the other children in the class might be jealous or that it might "set a precedent" she replied warmly "young children don't think like that; they are just happy that their friend isn't crying anymore". It was the kindest, most gentle approach and the only one that worked over the 18 months he struggled (of course he got older, which usually helps).

I have been through this when my son got ptad at 9 and it's so so tough. I took him to camhs. The advice I was given was to get him to school which was a nightmare at that age and give him something of mine so he knew I would come back. Then psychologist said if I stayed in school.or kept him home that it was validating his fears that he couldn't be without me or that his fear of me not coming was real

Got you. Try and find a psychologist as opposed to psychiatrist, if you can.

Also, I'd ignore most of what folks are saying in here; it's just not relevant to a child who has PAN!

How empathetic of you towards a 6yr old who has "brain encephalitis/Pans".

Sure if you'd gone through that ordeal and needed time off work to fully recover there would be laws to protect you...

@lostpasswordagain I have taught many children who came into the UK education system with absolutely no formal schooling prior to coming here. They also had English as a second language. They were put into age appropriate year groups and given plenty of additional support. Unless there was underlying SEND they made excellent progress. They certainly wouldn’t be placed at a desk and just expected to get on with it. Which appears to be what is happening to OP’s child currently.

She speaks the language, but not fluently.

This is the crux of the issue. I know you’ve gone back and forth since admitting this, but it sounds like the truth of the matter is that she isn’t fluent enough to understand what is happening and what is being asked of her. She is scared because she doesn’t understand, which is completely reasonable and normal. Her separation anxiety is probably also strongly correlated; she is anxious when she is around people that she can’t communicate with very well. She’s only six, of course this scares her.

You’ve said that you can’t afford an English language school, so that leaves you with two options:

1. Intensive immersion and tutoring in Portuguese to try to get her fluency where it needs to be in order to attend school in Portugal.
2. Move back to the UK or another English-speaking country.

Your husband is going to have to face reality here. If the children aren’t fluent enough to attend school there, you will have to leave. At this point if you don’t/can’t speak Portuguese with them at home I think they will really struggle to catch up to their peers.

She'll never catch up if she's never there.

Sometimes you have to be a bit cruel to be kind. Yes she's been ill, and I suspect during that time has had a lot of "oh my poor precious angel child!" - and rightly! - but she's also been a little pandered to.
But she's not ill now.

Now it needs to be, "Have a lovely time darling! I'll see you at X O'Clock! Bye!"

And the school need to stop phoning you up. Because all she's learning at the moment is that if she screams loud enough, and works herself up enough, she'll go home. Yes it's annoying and disruptive at school, but tough luck basically.

That's so depressing. So no compromise at all then? No opportunity for you to try and stay with him for a short while to help him settle in? Some advice is so counter-intuitive imo. He had PTSD, you would not be 'validating his fears', you would be responding to his needs as his primary care giver, comforting him and reassuring him that you can get through this together.

These "dump and run" tactics don't work for 99% of children (or adults) struggling.

I think that before taking the plunge with home schooling (as I think that once you start that you’ll never do anything different given her anxiety) I’d be tempted to try a highly structured school return if you can get school
onside. If staying for the whole morning is too much for her could she do a week of just up until break time, then a week until the start of lunch, then a week where she stays for lunch and then comes home and then full days? Hopefully she’d be back full time after a month.

I think also that she probably needs loads of reassurance from the school end that they are happy with the work she’s doing and that she will catch up. If you can get them to agree to the staggered return you can set out for her why it’s important that she goes to school and that she will catch up and that you will help her to get there. Hopefully with lots of reassurance and confidence building she will get there.
I’m an ex teacher and am usually in the ‘come into school and get on with it’ camp but I think that given what she has been through I’d be extra sympathetic to her needing more support than normal to do that. If she were in my class I’d be falling over myself to find reasons to praise what she’s doing and to reassure her that she’s doing well. I think that if at all possible you should try to work with them to get her back in, for her long term good. If it helps, I went through a patch of high anxiety as a pre-teen and would not have gone to school at all if I’d had my way. Thankfully my mum was the ‘kind but no nonsense’ type and said ‘you have to go, it’s for your own good in the end and I will be here if you really aren’t well and they need to send you home’. I’m SO glad she did this because I eventually came through it and went on to do well at school and uni which has given me loads of life choices and I made lots of friends and learnt some good life lessons on the way. I’m sure you will get there.

Agree wholeheartedly

Can she go down a year, ease into preschool and then start properly in September? Much easier as she is young in the year.

Can any of her Drs advise if they would support this?

OP, you haven't answered my question about whether or not your DD is happy to spend ANY time away from you, with her father or other friends/family. I feel the answer to this question would help us judge what might be the best course of action for her.

I also meant to say that if you do have a staggered return I’d try to make it non negotiable on the timings so she knows that you won’t collect her until the agreed time. That’s why I think that just in until break time would be a good start for the first week because even if she is upset it’s a very short time for her to wait. She will get used to ‘mum’s coming at x o’clock and you stay here until then’ and will hopefully learn to trust that she can cope until you come to get her.

A quick google suggest that it's not unusual to repeat a year in Portugal so I would push for this. I think you should push to get her back into pre-school so she can make some friends in time to start school again in August/September.